The BOSS compact pedals may be colourful little objects of desire to many, but it seems that some of them are more desirable than others...
BOSS revolutionised the pedal world with the 1977 release of its first compact pedals –the OD-1 Over Drive, PH-1 Phaser and SP-1 Spectrum. Since then, the compact series has been ubiquitous and there can’t be many guitarists who haven’t owned one at some time. But while there’s a massive range of BOSS compacts available to buy new, yet more models have been discontinued over the years. Perhaps they were ahead of their time, or possibly their qualities were overlooked in acrowded marketplace –and thus only remained in production for a couple of years. Today, the very scarcity of such pedals has granted them a cachet and collectibility that has made them among the most sought-after effects in the world.
You only have to look at the Instagram pages of collectors such as @boss_pedal_collector and @boss_ pedal_aficionado to see that the BOSS collecting bug is not purely about visual impact or a completist desire to own them all –many early BOSS pedals are desirable for their unique sonic qualities and can still play a part at the cutting edge of music. Before we take a look at the rarest compact pedals, however, we must first give an honorary mention to some earlier and larger BOSS effects.
Although Roland had released pedals earlier (the AP-7 Jet Phaser and AF-100 BeeBaa fuzz to name just two), the first pedal to appear under the BOSS name was the CE-1 Chorus Ensemble in 1976. BOSS had previously put the newly minted chorus effect into its synths and JC Jazz Chorus amps, but the CE-1 put it into a pedal and these, long out of production, are still very much in demand today and not just with guitarists –you’ll find many a CE-1 used in the recording studio for its spacious stereo sound. There were other larger-format BOSS pedals from the period, too, such as the DB-5 Boss Driver (used by Rory Gallagher in the 90s), BF-1 Flanger and the GE-10 Graphic Equalizer, all of which are now rare and collectible, but let’s move on to those discontinued compacts…
Slow Burners
First up, the SG-1 Slow Gear, a black auto-swell pedal – with its circuit DNA rooted in the NF-1 Noise Gate –that was only in the BOSS catalogue for three years. It muted the attack and swelled the volume of a note’s tail, while Sensitivity and Attack knobs allowed the user to tailor the effect. BOSS actually puts digital Slow Gear emulations in its large GT-series floorboards, but if you want the real thing they occasionally come up for sale and command a price th
